


Our Causation to Distrust

by Lucas_Schalt



Series: A Tale of Dreams and Illusions [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Miscelleneous Collection, The Eternity Cycle Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:16:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucas_Schalt/pseuds/Lucas_Schalt
Summary: Beauty is a curse - it prevents people from seeing who the real monsters are.





	1. Push-and-Pull

1\. Push-and-Pull

An infinite spread of stars and galaxies laid before him yet he only has eyes for her, the brightest diamond in his sky. 

"Why are you worried?" Marcus murmured softly, caressing the snow-white skin of her cheeks, brushing over pale, silken locks. "Have you forgotten already? Our future is endless. There's no longer a need to limit ourselves, Sterling." Cupping her jaw, he coaxed those deep blue, crystallized orbs to meet his gaze. "We're one, we're eternal, and now," leaning in, he breathed the words against her lips, with an aching sort of elated joy, "we're _together_."

"Only for now," Chalcedony replied, leveling sad look he didn't quite understand. She pressed her hand against his arm, tentative and hesitant, and Marcus spared a glance, silently questioning. "It's a push-and-pull. We...we've always been like that. We're opposites, Koan. We'll always oppose each other. We can never be on the same side."

He frowned. "I suppose," allowed Marcus, then studied her carefully. "But being together doesn't mean we change who we are, Sterling. Opposing forces can be on the same side - it's called a truce in politics and war."

"A truce?" she repeated, taking a step back. But only a step. She glanced down at their joined hands, and arched an eyebrow at him. Marcus merely graced her with a smile. "Is that what I should call this?" she asked, raising their interlaced hands.

He knew what she really meant to say, and wasn't ashamed to admit that he didn't care. While she would often deny it, he knows her. Knows her too well. And her tendency to run away when it suited her. He isn't letting her go, not when he knows that if she leaves him like this, with doubts and hesitancy about the two of them, she'll rethink and ponder and over-analyse their interaction until her mind gave her the answer she would be willing to swallow. 

" _Chalcedony_ ," he said, and felt her fingers flutter slightly in his hold. He took a step towards her, closing the gap she had made.

" _Marcus_."

She raised her chin, and Marcus felt somewhat pleased and fondly exasperated at her defiant expression. He lightly touched the nape of her neck. Although she didn't trust him - at least, not to the extent he wished she did, the fact that she didn't react at all to having him so close within her space, close enough to decapitate her if he wanted to, spoke volumes.

_Such a difficult woman._

He cupped her cheek again, and if she caught him this time intently looking at her lips, he didn't particularly care. After all, he fully intends to finish what he had started earlier. And if the way she completely stilled against him, narrowing those penetrating eyes of hers, told him that she knows it too. 

"Don't," she warned. And her face, a blank canvas, couldn't mask all of her emotions. Not when he was this close to her, not when her whole body was betraying her bit by bit as the seconds ticked along. And he read her like a book.

The warmth of her reddening cheeks. Embarrassment.

The fast drumming beat of her pulse. Anticipation.

His eyes darkened as her tongue hesitantly slipped through the seams of her mouth, wetting her lips. 

Nervousness.

Want.

Desire.

"Say that again, _Chalcedony_ ," Marcus murmured, and the ticking pulse of her throat skipped a beat. "And you should hope to the stars and moon above that you mean it, that you really don't want this, don't wish for me to want you, to need you." He slid a hand into the silky strands of her hair, pale gold and spun of starlight, and she shuddered at his touch. He tugged at her hair, angling her to face him. He smiled wickedly. "Tell me exactly,  _honestly_ , that you don't wish for any of that." 

Marcus knew her - oh, he knew her so well.

He knows when she lies to him.

He knows when she's honest with him.

And so he waits as she struggles to form her answer. 

"I...I don't," Chalcedony forced out in the end. And he imagined that nothing could compare to the feeling of delight and triumph that courses through him when heard her answer. " _I don't want you, Marcus Koan._ "

He laughed aloud, and it startles her momentarily. Spitting anger and embarrassment, she said hotly, "It's true-"

"It's not." And Marcus pulled her into his arms, his body still shaking from the remnants of his mirth. Happiness. He was damn happy. And so very much enamored with her, with this self-righteous, purveyor of good that had the audacity to lie to him. 

" _Marcus,_ " she said, voice raising to a high-pitch. "I said  _no_."

Marcus grinned at her. "Don't worry, I heard you the first time, _liar_."

He kissed her.

 


	2. The Complete Disregard of Boundaries, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcus reads something he shouldn’t and Chalcedony panics.

2\. The Complete Disregard of Boundaries, Part I

Chalcedony stared with growing horror and apprehension as he dropped the thick tome in front of her. The gold lettering has long since smudged away to illegible words, the worn bindings barely held the yellowed, terribly stained pages together.

She didn’t dare take breath as Marcus casually took a seat opposite her, and started to slowly peel page after page, head bowed as he quickly scanned the Old Mindonean text with practiced ease.

Chalcedony tightly clutched her case forms in her hand, her complexion growing paler by the minute. It was obvious enough that he’s not going to offer an explanation for...for having that with him.

But the moment he stopped at a single page and paused at it longer than he did for the rest, she caught sight of the title of the chapter, and quickly snapped.

“What are you doing with that!?” she demanded, scrapping the chair as she got up and slammed the forms onto the table. “Return it before someone notices.”

Marcus didn’t look up, but his easy, amused smile told her that he most certainly heard her.

Incensed, she reached over and tried to pry the tome from him. It was a futile move, she knew, but he wasn’t suppose to be reading it in the first place.

Unsurpringly enough, she didn’t get far with her efforts as his firm hold on the book didn’t allow it to budge an inch.

“I’m reading,” Marcus said reproachfully, though the sly glint in his eyes showed that he was enjoying this. “Bother someone else, Sterling.”

“Read something else,” Chalcedony snapped. Once again, she tugged at the book. “We’re not allowed to read this, Koan. Put it back where it came from or so help me-”

“You’ll tell on me?” Marcus guessed cheerfully. He tapped a finger to his chin, a mocking look of concentration on his face. “Oh dear, probably I should return it...later,” he added, bending once again to read the text. “Right after I finish gleaning everything that I need to know.”

Chalcedony huffed and gathered all of her things, before stalking off. He lifted his head long enough to watch her leave. He didn’t take it to heart, she’ll be back again to chaste him later.

Returning to the text, Marcus frowned when the words started swimming in his vision, information floating off the pages, distorted and illegible. Realising what she had done, he angrily swiped a hand at the tome and it slid off the table, smacking the floor in an audible thump before vanishing to nothingness.

“Sterling!” Marcus roared, quickly taking off in the direction he had seen her run off to. “Give it back!”

.

Time, Time, Time.

Chalcedony thought frantically as she navigated through the maze of towering bookshelves and pigeon-hole walls, the tome of Mindonean Laws safely tucked underneath her arm. At the reminder of what she was currently holding, her mood soured and she cursed Marcus for disregarding the rules. Again.

Quadracourt Guardians weren’t allowed to read the texts, much less study the laws at their own leisure. That was the role of the High Scholar.

“Sterling!”

Hearing his roar of outrage, she speeded up her running. She had to return the tome back to the High Scholar. If only Lycon, the High Chronicler of the Archive of Memories, was with her, Chalcedony thought as she darted through another row of books, she would have reached the the place by now.

Suddenly a blur of rich, crimson robes and scarlet hair flew into her line of vision, and before she could dart away into the other direction, Marcus seized her wrist.

“Sterling,” he said firmly, almost pleasantly, but the terrible glint in his wine-stained orbs told her otherwise. “Hand it over.”

Chalcedony glared. “No.”

He let out a sigh. “What if I said please?”

“You’re not getting this book.”

“Pretty please?” he tried. “I’ll even let you read it, if you want...?”

“Not. Interested.” She wretched her hand out of his grip, and he let her, observing her with a frown. “How did you steal this from the High Scholar?”

“What?” She glared at him. Marcus put up his hands, and shook his head. “Honest. Look, did you actually examine it before jumping to conclusions?”

“Of course I did,” she sniffed. “But stop changing the subject.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it darling, I’m still on the same topic I was on before,” he reassured her, his tone sarcastic. “But seriously, give me back the journal.”

“I already said- journal? What journal?”

“The one you’re currently holding,” Marcus said dryly. “It’s my journal.”

“But, but..it can’t be.” She looked at cover, betrayed. “You’re lying.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’d know if I was,” he pointed out. “I’m telling the truth, so pass it here.” He held out his hand, and she stared at it.

“Then what was that note about Time?” she asked instead, stalling.

Seeing as she wasn’t going to give in any time soon, he withdrew his hand with a sigh. “What about it?”

“Are you planning something?” she said bluntly.

Marcus held out his hands, exasperated. “Sterling, I know you’re paranoid but this is ridiculous. I’m an academician not a maniac.”

“Then why do you have notes of Time in your ‘journal’?”

“Because I also write when I research? Really Sterling, for your high and mighty stance on justice, stealing should be beneath you.” He held out his hand again. “I want it back. Now”

Reluctantly she handed him the journal. “If I found out that this is some kind of trick-”

Marcus smiled, tucking the book underneath his arm. “Don’t worry, it’s not,” he reassured her. Then he looked at his watch. “Oh, weren’t you suppose to go for that court hearing at noon?”

“I completely forgot!” Without so much as a goodbye, Marcus watched as Chalcedony quickly left him for her case reports, a triumphant smirk on his face.

“Ah, alone at last,” Marcus said to no in particular, bringing the tome to eye-level. “Let’s see what secrets you hold, shall we?”

And he was off, whistling a jaunty tune as he find another table to work at. 


End file.
